Alfred Dreyfus

“Dreyfus listened to the verdict with his usual perplexing impassivity.”
—Ruth Harris, Dreyfus: Politics, Emotion and the Scandal of the Century

“Dreyfus had for so long been an abstraction — whether admired as “the martyr” or reviled as “the Judas” — that his actual arrival required emotional adjustments that many were unable to make… Dreyfus himself could not live up to the role that dramatic logic required of him.”
—Ruth Harris, Dreyfus

“Real men, flesh and blood men, above all those whose martyrdom is revealed, whose tortures…make people cry their eyes out, are not wooden pawns on a chessboard. One must choose. If they are wooden pawns on a chessboard, then don’t trouble my nights with the nightmares you paint.”
—Joseph Reinach, supporter of Dreyfus

Le Figaro, February 13, 1898

“Men and women on both sides felt that the Affair offered themselves a chance to remakes themselves, and they threw themselves into the public drama to hasten their transformations.”
—Ruth Harris, Dreyfus

“When men throw themselves into action…the love of principles, the thirst for an ideal…are the attributes of only a few.”
—Mathieu Dreyfus, brother of Alfred

“The Dreyfusards do not require the myth of spotless heroism and purity that was built around their advocacy after the Affair was over…They were men and women with all the flaws, inconsistencies and occasional cruelties of ordinary people, and should be admired as such.”
—Ruth Harris, Dreyfus